As is known, personal computers (PC) and laptop computers include audio processing circuitry. Such audio processing circuitry allows a computer to play CDs, DVDs, etc. and produce audible sound therefrom. Current PCs and laptop computers include three audio jacks to facilitate the processing of audio. The three audio jacks are typically labeled line-in, microphone, and line-out. The line-in audio jack is used to receive analog audio signals from external devices, such as a CD player, cassette player, etc. The audio processing circuitry receives the analog audio signals via the line-in audio jack and converts the analog signals into digital signals, which can be manipulated by the computer. The audio processing circuitry also receives digital audio signals from the computer, converts them to analog signals, and provides the analog signals to speakers via the line-out audio jack. The digital audio signals may result from playback of a CD via an internal CD driver, mixed digital audio, etc. The audio processing circuitry may also receive analog audio signals via the microphone audio jack and convert these analog audio signals into digital audio signals for processing by the computer.
With advances in audio processing circuitry, surround-sound and other audio effects are readily available. For example, three-dimensional audio, audio synthesis via a wave table, pitch alterations, echo, etc. However, in the PC and laptop computing environments, such computing devices only include three audio jacks (line-in, line-out, and microphone). As such, current PC and laptop devices only accommodate stereo audio and not multi-channel or surround-sound audio.
Therefore, a need exists for a method and apparatus that provides multi-channel audio in a computing system.